Frugal is Becoming Fashionable...

AGAIN!


Just as most things do, the idea of being frugal is once again becoming fashionable. In the mid-nineties, it seemed that people started forgetting - no, not forgetting, but considering passe - the thrifty old adage: Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do, Or do without." The new consumer banner, waving more and more freely as we moved through the early 2000's, certainly seemed to become: I want it all, and I want it now! But now it's time to rein in that debt-fueled abandon.

And therein lie serious problems: Some folks don't know or have forgotten how to say "no" to themselves, they don't know either the large or little ways to live economically, and all the traditional back-ups for dealing with both personal and more global downturns in the economy have been pushed to the limit already. What to do, what to do...

We'll all be inundated with thrifty tips in the coming months, most nothing new, many just common sense, and some requiring real effort, self-denial, a re-thinking of what it means to live within your means.

In the coming days, we're gong to look at the broader issues of the current family financial challenges, and tomorrow we'll start with some words, just words, and what they mean to you, what images they conjure. Saving money has to start with mind-set. So, that's what we'll explore first.

Mary

A Big Roast for Sunday Dinner, But Which Cut to Buy?

If you want to save money on groceries, not only should you consider serving smaller portions, but you may want to try some different cuts, perhaps cooked in ways new to you. If I say "oven roast," which cut comes to your mind first? Round tip? Maybe ribeye? If I say "pot roast," what cuts do you think of? Bottom round? Boneless huck?

Have you ever tried flank steak? Brisket? Shank cuts? Bone-in chuck? The cuts of beef that will save money are most often those you braise, or otherwise slow-cook with moisture, such as stew beef. And the same applies when it comes to meats other than beef. Chicken legs and thighs are cheaper but really need to be slow-cooked, as does a daisy ham or smoked shoulder. Today's meats have been bred to be more tender, and some of the less expensive cuts can be marinated and then dry-cooked, BUT when you slow cook, you also get a rich, delicious broth.

And then there are other alternatives to the meat counter, things such as canned salmon, tuna, clams, even some of the canned corned beef is a good buy for making a hearty hash...tasty recipe in The Frugal Family Kitchen Book!

There's no doubt that if meat has been taking a big chunk out of your grocery dollar, you'll have to do some real re-thinking about how to best buy protein and iron, how much meat you serve, what kinds of meat you buy, and what alternatives would still give your family the good nutrition they need.

Of course, you can't just make huge changes in your meals all at once or all by yourself, or you'll probably have a family rebellion at the supper table. Talk with the people you feed...they need to be part of what needs to change, and they may have some great suggestions!

And then, again, maybe I'm just a crazy optimist!

See you next time,

Mary

Rising Grocery Costs - The Meat of the Matter

Probably no single category takes a bigger chunk of your grocery dollar than meat. As I wrote in The Frugal Family Kitchen Book, "To save money, you MUST reduce serving portions, learn to use cheaper cuts, buy the specials, use substitutes, and comepare the costs of various cuts." That's still good advice.

First servings, both how many times a week (and day) you serve meat (and "meat" includes poultry and fish) and also the size of individual portions served. Do you feel that each meal, or even two meals a day, needs to have a meat base? Rethink! How many times a day/week you serve meat is crucial to saving money. Aside from the farm-table-tradition of meat-and-potatoes, why is meat on the menu? Protein and iron, right? Both are easily and less expensively available from other sources, foods that may also be healthier. One simple example? Thai hot peanut sauce served with whole wheat pasta (recipe follows). If you're not already having at least some meatless meals each week, start now with just one. Beans, brown bread and cole slaw. A spicy and filling African stew, thick with chick peas, squash and richly tempting with fragrant seasongings. The possibilities are endless and delicious!

Thai Hot Peanut Sauce

1/2 c water
1/2 crunchy peanut butter sauce
1 TPSP soy sauce
1 TBSP vinegar
1/2 tsp (or more!) hot red pepper flakes or a dab of Thai chili garlic paste is excellent
1/3 - 1/2 c scallions or chives, finely cut
2-3 cloves garlic, finely minced (bottled garlic is fine)
whole wheat pasta

While the pasta cooks, make the sauce. Setting aside a few scallions or chives for garnish, combine all other ingredients in a small saucespan and heat slowly, stirring to blend. This is a delicious, kid-doing-easy, and inexpensive recipe that truly can be made last-minute.


Next, look at portions of the meats you do serve. The old serving standard of a piece of meat the size of a deck of cards for an adult is still valid. Remind yourself of that by setting a deck of cards in the middle of your supper table for a while. Maybe that will help keep family members from reaching for that second hamburg patty or slice of chicken. If you're the family dinner server, consider limiting what you put on the table. One piece of meatloaf per person instead of the meatloaf itself, too readily available for second servings.

One word of caution here: It's very easy to get in the habit of using cheese, in all its wonderful and tasty forms, as a meat substitute. While many cheeses do offer quality protein, etc. many are also high in saturated fats and should be limitied. As a vegetarian, I can certainly attest to how very tempting cheeses can be! To be honest, after having had a serious sweet tooth all my life, I now find it easier to resist a brownie than a chunk of blue cheese!

In our next visit, let's look at the various cuts of meat and how they might offer savings.

Mary

The Rising Cost of Groceries

It's nothing new, foods costs going up and up, but even for those of us who've been through recessionary cycles before, somehow the good times tend to help us forget how to pinch pennies, especially at the grocery store. Today, I just want you to do something pretty simple to start saving at the store: I want you to get out your last grocerty store register tape. If you don't have the one from your latest shopping trip, then be sure you save the next one.

For now, please just check three things on that register tape: 1.) how much of the total spent was non-food items; 2.) how much did you spend on meat; and, 3.) what one item on that list could you definitely have done without this week? Under the non-food items, were there magazines, laundry products, kitchen gadgets, pet supplies, health and beauty products such as vitamins, shampoo, toothpaste?

While I certainly recognize the convenience of one-stop shopping especially for working folks, the grocery stores also recognize that convenience factor. And in many cases, you pay more for whatever time and energy you save. That may - or may not - be worth it. Using five non-food items from your list, take the time to check the prices at your nearest big-box store, probably a Wal-Mart.

For toiletries, laundry products, pet supplies and even magazines, the grocery store may very well not be your best bet. IF, IF you can do a one-trip, non-food stocking up, buying just and only what you need, you will save. A simple example? I buy spray sizing at Wal-Mart for $.93 a can, while it's $1.38 and $1.29 ( yes, same brand) at the two grocery stores where I usually shop. (By the way, I'm no big fan of Wal-Mart, just a realist!)

This simple exercise, of looking over your grocery register tape, is a start, and on Wednesday, we'll look at the part two, the meat portion of your food dollar.

Mary

This Amazing Internet...

A few days ago a friend suggested that I send a copy of The Frugal Family Kitchen Book to a friend of hers to review on her blog. Now you've got to understand just how circuitous this venture became.

My friend Sabrina lives in Bridgton, about 35 miles from my house, while her friend Myscha lives w-a-y upcountry, near the top of Maine. So, I sent a kitchen book up to Myscha who read it and then e-mailed me with some interview-type questions which I promptly answered, again via email. Of course, pre-internet this all would have taken the back-and-forth forever of snail mail.

So less than a week after I shipped the book north, it had been read, I'd been interviewed, Myscha had put together the review and posted it to her Wisebread blog (http://www.wisebread.com/myscha-theriault). WOW!

And then, Myscha's piece was picked up by The Consumerist website (http://consumerist.com/361662/never-budgeted-before) and who knows where in cyber-space this will all end. It's very exciting!

I hope you'll check both these links, as far beyond The Frugal Family Kitchen Book connection, both sites have a great deal of information to offer.

Mary

The Frugal Family Kitchen

The Frugal Family Kitchen

http://www.wisebread.com/myscha-theriault
http://consumerist.com/361662/never-budgeted-before

What To Do With Amazing Grace


It all started last June, but who could possibly have known then the adventures to come for those day-old turkey poults? If you've never seen baby turkeys, they are fluffy and fun to watch, a cute stage they quickly outgrow. Although we usually raise the bronze turkeys, last spring we got white ones instead as they are more placid, easier, to raise. Now if it sounds as though we're running a major operation here, not so! We had gotten only eight birds.

They had a nice open pen next to the chickens and seemed to enjoy occasionally being allowed out to free-range in the yard for bugs and such. Many people think turkeys are not the brightest birds in the barnyard, and those folks just may be right. But the turkeys grew quickly and started looking pretty tasty as the weather turned fallish. Thanksgiving was looming.

Now for those of you who think turkeys - and other meats - just magically appear in the supermarket in neat plastic bags or on clean foam trays, well, this might be a good time for you to go see what's on tv. Even though I do not eat poultry myself, when you are raising meat birds, you have a mindset from day one about the realities of their eventual demise.

And so, on the Saturday before Thanksgiving it was time for the eight turkeys, all of whom had plumped up nicely, to go to slaughter. Bert and his friend Warren gathered the birds, one at a time and set them in the back of the truck, then with the cover down and the tailgate firmly closed, men and birds set off for the Hutchings' farm where the turkeys would be "processed." It's about a fifteen mile trip and the guys talked away as they bumped over country roads.

BUT, when they got to the Hutchings there were only six birds! And, of course the workers wondered what kind of fools would bring their turkeys in a truck with the tailgate open...

After leaving the six turkeys, Bert and Warren retraced their steps looking left and right along the roadside for any sign of the two escapees. Almost back home, they spied a pile of white feathers and screeched to a halt. Circling the neighborhood, they found one very scared turkey on someone's doorstep. Although it had fallen from the truck at probably 20-25 mph, it was not too much the worse for its adventure.

But, search as they did, they could not find any sign of Turkey Two. Back to the Hutchings to drop off they one they'd found. Now, we've had trouble with dogs and foxes going after the turkeys right in our backyard so we knew Turkey Two didn't have a chance in that fairly rural area where even coyotes are often heard at night.

But, even so, Warren let the local police know there was one white turkey on the loose. Of course one of our neighbors could just see the headlines in our local paper, "Turkey on the Lam!"
And luckily we always raise an extra so we had enough for the friends we promised birds to for their holiday dinners.

Twelve days later, in early December, the call came: Your turkey's been spotted. It had survived! Bert went right off to find it and sure enough, there it was, cowering under some pine trees at the edge of someone's backyard. He was able to capture it and brought it home. First off, it was unbelievably hungry, but then after it had eaten and drank its fill, it started pacing back and forth in the pen, obviously lonely for its long-since-eaten friends. What to do, what to do.

Turkey Two had now become Amazing Grace and we finally moved Grace in with our laying hens, into their nice warm house with its nice large pen. Usually it's wiser not to put turkeys and chickens together, but well, Grace was sooo sad...

And so here we are, months later, with an incredibly fat turkey living the good life with our dozen egg-laying girls. But, it really seems as though Grace should be...well, ...dispatched. She's too big and eats too much to just keep as a pet and she's really getting too waddle-y to be comfortable. But it's a tough decision...

What to do, what to do with Amazing Grace??

Mary

Friends I've Never Met...

It's the strangest thing how much you can come to value the friendship of someone you've never met. Now maybe "friendship" seems too strong a word to use, but to me the word expresses a degree of connection beyond mere acquaintance. Alice Goldsmith, a widow who lives here in Maine, has been a faithful reader of this blog since I started writing it, and I value her comments. When I stopped writing for a while she gently chided me, telling me that she missed the entries. She has shared some sorrows and some memories, and for both I thank her.

In the summertime I set out flower bouquets on the rock wall at the foot of our driveway for people to take; they can just help themselves. I love giving away beauty, and I've come to learn how much these flowers often mean to people, folks who wave, drop off a thank you note, or, best of all, pass the flowers on to someone else whose life may need brightening. I seldom know what the men, women and kids who take the flowers look like, I don't often know where they live, whether they went to college, what their dog's name is, or anything whatsoever about them, but we are most definitely friends. There is a connection centered on something important, perhaps essential, to both of us.

I've written before about what community is, what it means, why it is so intrinisically important to us. I think friends we've never met are part of the fabric of a well-woven community, one that can offer warmth whatever chill may come into our individual lives. So on this cold, dreary, November afternoon, I hope you think of several friends you've never actually met, and maybe even think about who might consider you in that way.

As the old saying goes, to have a friend, you have to be friend, but you know something? That doesn't have to mean best buds since kindergarten, or similar backgrounds and shared values.
Friendship can be of this moment and in this place where these two minds have met and come away the better from the connection, no matter how fragile or transitory it may seem.

Thank you for being a friend!

Mary

P.S. Next week we'll start on tons of Christmas gift ideas, frugal ideas because it sure looks as though money is going to be tight for just about everyone this year!

Salmon... Good, Good for You, But a Bargain?


Salmon, like all omega-rich fish, can be a delicious addition to your menus, especially in winter-hearty dishes. Fresh salmon steaks, canned salmon, and smoked salmon, which I especially like, are readily available year-round; however, while the fresh and canned varieties can be reasonably priced, the fancy fillets of smoked salmon are usually too expensive for an everyday dinner. At one of our local supermarkets (Hannaford in Portland), we've discovered a great buy on trimmings from those fancy fillets of smoked salmon, and not just any brand but Maine's own Ducktrap River. A ONE POUND package of trimmings is $6.95 (hmmmm... or was it $6.99).

Keeping in mind that you only need 3-4 ounces per serving, this offers great nutrition at an even better price. But, of course, the question is, how to use it? On a platter with red onion slices, whole wheat crackers or thin-sliced French bread, cheese (go light here), apple and pear slices, and a few black olives, some capers if you have them... a meal right there.

These bits and pieces - and many are good-sized chunks - of smoked salmon can be used in most recipes calling for any kind of salmon, and salmon chowder made with the smoked pieces is doubly delicious. But my very favorite recipe is one I clipped from our local weekly newspaper, The Notes, years ago. Because I don't eat meat or poultry, this recipe - Kedgeree - has become my favorite St. Patrick's Day alternative to corned-beef-and-cabbage. And YES, I still do cook that for the meat-eaters of my family!

Made with rice, smoked salmon, eggs, and seasonings, Kedgeree is a quick and easy, complete meal and the leftovers - if there are any - are terrific. Just try it once...

Kedgeree (with my modification, of course!)

2 TBSP butter
1/2 - 3/4 c chopped onion (we like more)
1 c white rice (I've tried brown where it's healthier, but... naaaah)
1 generous TBSP curry
2 c water
good sprinkle of both salt and black pepper
4 hard-cooked eggs, sliced or chopped
1/2 to 3/4 lb smoked salmon trimmings, divided
1/4 c lemon juice
1/4 c chopped parsley, plus a bit for the top

In a large fry pan (one for which you have a cover), melt butter over medium heat, add onion, rice and curry powder, then saute, stirring, for 6 minutes. It's really important to do this with the curry to bring out its flavor and heat. Stir in water, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer 15-20 minutes until rice is cooked and all water is absorbed. Stir in eggs, most of the salmon saving a little to garnish the top, the lemon juice and parsley. I heat through then serve topped with bits and salmon and parsley. I often add oatmeal bread or muffins and a smidge of applesauce. YUM!

Soooo... Do look for those packages of smoked salmon trimmings at your grocery store as they are good for you AND for your food budget!

Mary

Happy Halloween!

Trick or Treat

Trick or treat, smell my feet,

Give me something good to eat.

I like apples, grapes and pears,

Or moldy bread, thick with hairs.

Candied toejam, bellybutton lint,

Globs of earwax, dipped in mint.

Jellied snot, spread on toast,

That's the thing I love the most!

For dessert, I think we'll eat,

Slabs of brain, thick and sweet.

So come to my house halloween night,

And give your stomach an awful fright!

BURP!!